The Famished Road

“Apart from a mark on my palm I had managed to avoid being discovered. It may simply have been that I had grown tired of coming and going. It is terrible to forever remain in-between.”

Azaro reveals his identity as a spirit-child, someone with a foot in two worlds, the material world and the spirit realm. It, too, resonates with Christian ideology: Azaro is marked by a stigmata on his palm; it is a mark both of his difference and, possibly, of his divinity—or, at least, of his potentially divine powers. As a liminal figure, Azaro has access to knowledge from both worlds; he can see and understand more than the other characters.

“The clearing was the beginning of an expressway. Building companies had levelled the trees. In places the earth was red. We passed a tree that had been felled. Red liquid dripped from its stump as if the tree had been a murdered giant whose blood wouldn’t stop flowing.”

One of several instances wherein nature is personified, the tree here is bleeding as if it had been murdered in the service of the building of the road. This exemplifies the tension explored throughout the novel between the natural world and human-driven development. The notion of whether or not this is “progress”—paving roads, bringing electricity—is called into question.

“The pictures were grained, there were dots over our faces, smudges everywhere. Dad looked as if he had a patch over one eye, Mum was blurred in both eyes, the children were like squirrels, and I resembled a rabbit. We all looked like celebrating refugees. We were cramped, and hungry, and our smiles were fixed. The room appeared to be constructed out of garbage and together we seemed a people who had never known happiness.”

The family looks at pictures of themselves taken by the Photographer. As he remarks later in the book, he has the power to show people as they are—to make them beautiful or ugly. Here, it appears as if the photograph shows the suffering beneath the veneer. They are dehumanized, robbed of features, or turned into animals; their hunger is visibly apparent; their living conditions are squalid literal trash. They are the discarded ones.

“It seemed that the trees, feeling that they were losing the argument with human beings, had simply walked deeper into the forest.”

Reminiscent of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Ents in his Lord of the Rings trilogy, these personified trees represent the sacrifice made in the name of progress and development. As noted above, the trees are at the frontline of a battle between human-driven expansion and the natural world. The preservation of the forests is significant not only for the ecosystem but also for the preservation of the culture; the two are inextricably linked.

“For the first time in our lives we as a people had appeared in the newspapers. We were heroes in our own drama, heroes of our own protest. There were pictures of us, men and women and children, standing helplessly round heaps of the politicians’ milk. There were pictures of us raging, attacking the van, rioting against the cheap methods of politicians, humiliating the thugs of politics, burning their lies.”

The documentation of events via photographs cements them and makes them real in a way that oral storytelling does not. This is one of the few instances when modern technology works in favor of the villagers. There is visual evidence that cannot be belied—of the politicians’ lies and their bad intentions. The villagers are made (more) real by the photographic record.

“The sun made the air and the earth shimmer and as I kept watch I perceived, in the crack of a moment, the recurrence of things unresolved—histories, dreams, a vanished world of great old spirits, wild jungles, tigers with eyes of diamonds roaming the dense foliage. I saw beings who dragged clanking chains behind them, bleeding from their necks.”

Azaro is looking out for the Photographer, so he can escape from the thugs who wish to destroy the photographic evidence of the riots over the tainted milk powder. As he witnesses the destruction of the Photographer’s glass cabinet and the photographs therein, Azaro can see back through time to contemplate “things unresolved.” These are the unbearable weight of history, the centuries of oppression, and the ultimate horror of slavery.

“Mum was alone in the room, praying to our ancestors and to God in three different languages. She knelt by the door, her kerchief partly covering her face, rubbing her palms together fervently.”

In another instance wherein the legacy of colonialism intrudes, Mum’s ability to speak three different languages—one indigenous, two the result of occupation—is directly linked to the project of imperialism and colonization. There is also a collision of cultures here, in that Mum prays to her ancestors—indigenous forms of worship—and to a presumably Christian God, brought in with the white European invaders.

“Then the bar took on a sinister light. I saw its other sides, felt its secret moods. The men and women seemed like better versions of the spirits who used to come here, and who had tried to steal me away. They had a greater mastery of the secrets of human disguise. I heard their metallic voices and the laughter of their perfumes, and underneath all the dancing and the energy was the invasion of a rancid smell.”

The spirits that coalesce around Azaro, himself an abiku (spirit) child, become better at mimicking their human counterparts. However, their intentions are always suspect, as they endeavor to take Azaro out of the land of the living and back to the realm of the spirits. Underneath their celebratory exteriors, the spirits reek of decay, the scent of something gone bad.

“During the harmattan [dry season] we always forget the rainy season. That’s why it rains so viciously on the first day, reminding us with a vengeance of its existence.”

The power of natural forces is emphasized throughout the book. The people of Azaro’s village live by the seasons and what the weather brings; they are in tune with the natural world’s cycles in a way that the colonizers are not. Hence, the colonizers’ projects often fail, as they themselves fail to account for the ferociousness of the rain and the seasonal changes to the landscape.

“My name sounded heavier. The woman urged me on. Her face, gentle in the light of a dreaming nebula, promised the ecstasies of a secret homeland, a world of holidays. A rough, familiar hand touched me on the shoulder.” “Where are you going, Azaro?” “It was Mum.”

A spirit woman is trying to lure Azaro away from his home, her promises of ignorance and bliss a welcome respite from the depredations of the material world. Mum, in juxtaposition to the gentle spirit woman, has rough hands—real hands—to shock him back to the land of the living. It is a metaphor for death, the sweet release always hovering at the edges of such a precarious existence, rife with poverty and hunger. The love of family, the care of the community, and sheer determination keep Azaro rooted in the real world.

“I began to feed on my hunger. I fed well and had a mighty appetite. I dipped into myself and found other worlds waiting. I chose a world and lingered. There were no spirits there. It was a world of wraiths. A world of famine, famishment, and drought.”

In Book 5, Azaro briefly gives in to his despair, the call of the spirits, and his stubbornness in the face of punishment. He refuses to eat and makes himself ill. He takes a deep dive into his depression, finding gratification in self-fulfilling prophecies. He is indulging in self-pity and skirting martyrdom. It is akin to John Bunyan’s journey through the Slough of Despond in Pilgrim’s Progress or the epic hero’s journey through the underworld.

“It seemed that our lives would know a new dawn, take on new colors of sweetness, and that in the warm spirit of our miseries would be transformed into something miraculous and tangible like the birds of heaven. The world was new to me, everything was fresh.”

It is only through the love and care of his parents that Azaro is able to come out of his deep despair. Once he returns to life, he experiences an awakening, an epiphany; the Christian-inflected language here is quite deliberate, as Azaro has metaphorically come back from the dead (like his namesake Lazarus once did). The passage also uses synesthesia, the colors of the breaking day tasting of sweetness, and the juxtaposition between previous miseries and the flight of birds of paradise emphasizes the spiritual awakening Azaro has undergone.

“All the streets in our area were once part of a river. As always, the river god was claiming back his terrain.”

Again, the force of the natural world is truly divine. The “river god” is never fully departed, only submerged beneath the thin veneer of “progress” superimposed upon it. Just as colonialism and the obsolete notion of “civilization” were only superficial and temporary overlays of power upon a deep and abiding culture, the streets only momentarily cover the powers that wait underneath. The river god mirrors what the people themselves are trying to do: reclaim their territory.

“He went around, demented and restless, as if a jaguar had somehow got trapped in his brain. An unbearable energy bristled in him. Whenever he came near me I felt him shivering like a great animal startled by its own ferocity.”

After the fight with the Yellow Jaguar, Dad seems possessed by him. It appears as if the Yellow Jaguar was the spirit of a departed man, and the ghost’s outsized energies have been added to Dad’s already “bristling” energy. Now, he is not only the Black Tyger in name, but he has physically become “a great animal” in a fitting simile.

“The crowd scattered in shame at having backed the wrong man, in shame for having judged things by appearances, and in bad temper because they didn’t know how to achieve the swift turnaround in appreciation. We were not bothered. Dad’s victory was all the world we needed.”

After the fight with the Green Leopard, the crowd is confused. They backed the larger, stronger man, not counting on Dad’s skill and determination. The crowd’s actions—both in backing “the wrong man” and in their subsequent “shame”—are metaphors for politics, in general. The passions of the masses are fickle and swing between political parties (who are, the author emphasizes, largely the same, ideologically speaking), disappointed when the façade is revealed.

“He talked of buying enough cement to build houses for all the large families who lived in one room. He spoke of tarring all the roads and clearing away all the rubbish that had accumulated in the consciousness of our people. He dreamt of opening massive stores that would sell food cheaply to all the poor people.”

Dad has messianic visions and grandiose plans after he recuperates from the epic fight with the Green Leopard. He is inspired by his desire to dig his way out of the impoverishment and oppression that has defined his—and his village’s—life. Making the physical improvements will result in psychologically positive results, as he conflates material rubbish with the psychological detritus (poverty, hunger, subjugation) clogging the people's awareness.

“He abused the government, he denounced both political parties for poisoning the minds of the people. But he reserved his most furious assault for the people of the nation. He blamed them for not thinking for themselves, he lashed out at their sheep-like philosophy, their tribal mentality, their swallowing of lies, their tolerance of tyranny, their eternal silence in the face of suffering.”

Dad unleashes a tirade at the people who crash his party. While his points are often salient, they are also tainted by the legacy of colonialism. First, the physical oppression and psychological persecution at the hands of the colonizers over decades has a lasting effect, cowing the psyche and propagating fear and obeisance. Second, the other tenant of colonial policy is to sow dissension, to pit the people against one another. Dad’s tirade is no match for the promise of sensory fulfillment; the people want food and drink, not lectures.

“Crowded spaces suddenly became empty. And in the emptiness, I saw the ghost forms of white men in helmets supervising the excavation of precious stones from the rich earth. The excavation was done with spectral machines. [...] Over them the celebrants danced to the music of a new era that promised Independence.”

During the raucous party at Madame Koto’s bar, celebrating her newfound wealth and influence, Azaro sees glimpses of the rapacious past that underpins her—and her political party’s—success. It comes at the cost of losing local resources and damaging the natural landscape. The “promise” of “Independence” questions whether the costs are worth the elusive gains. There is no liberty without dignity and no freedom from grinding poverty and hunger.

“Deep in the duiker’s eyes, I ran through the yellow forests, through deluded generations, through time. I witnessed the destruction of great shrines, the death of might trees that housed centuries of insurgent as well as soothing memories, sacred texts, alchemical secrets of wizards, and potent herbs. I saw the forests die.”

Azaro spies a duiker tied up in a corner at the party. He is captivated by the animal’s deeply sad eyes, which take him on another journey through the past. His visions emphasize the inextricable connection between the land and the people. The destruction of nature and the erosion of culture are one and the same process; ancient texts and healing herbs, indigenous beliefs, and forested lands converge to create the people’s core cultural beliefs, their civilization.

“All my white colleagues had deserted me. Then one day my head cleared. Five hundred years had gone past. The only way to get out of Africa was to become an African. So I changed my thinking. I changed my ways.”

The speaker is the white man who gave Mum the blue sunglasses; he asks her how to get out of Africa because he cannot seem to escape. He returns two weeks later—despite his claim that it has been hundreds of years—to tell her the above story. It is a fable about the white man’s dilemma, the African future: Colonial thinking and policy, the Western desire for control and power, must be discarded for Africa to thrive.

“I understood why spirit children are so feared. Faced always with the songs and fragrances of another world, a world beyond death, where the air is illuminated, where spirits know the secrets of one’s desire, and can fulfill those desires, every single one of them, spirit-children do not care much for the limited things of the world.”

Azaro, like other abiku children, can see beyond the “limited” desires of the material world. The desire for power, influence, and wealth— all of the things that Madame Koto ultimately embodies—is fleeting cravings when matched against more spiritual needs. Azaro points out that the abiku do not fear death because the soul moves beyond its boundaries. This is a tenant of his ancestral heritage and the Christian influence that permeates the book.

“Given the fact of the immortality of spirits, could these be the reason why I wanted to be born—these paradoxes of things, the eternal changes, the riddle of living while one is alive [...] the probability that no injustice lasts for ever [sic], no love ever dies, that no light is ever really extinguished, that no true road is ever complete, that no way is ever definitive, not truth ever final, and that there are never really any beginnings or endings?”

Azaro has completed his spiritual journey by the novel's end; he has come of age and grown into the mature thinker he now reveals himself to be. He realizes that the only constant is change; if that is the case, the possibilities for justice, tolerance, love, and peace are always present. There is always hope, even in the depths of despair. Azaro embodies this paradox: He is the spirit child who wants to live in and enact positive change on the material world.

“He saw the world in which black people always suffered and he didn’t like it. He saw a world in which human beings suffered so needlessly from Antipodes to Equator, and he didn’t like it either. [...] He saw the divisions in our society, the lack of unity, he saw the widening pit between those who have and those who don’t, he saw it all very clearly.”

Dad’s dream visions reveal the unvarnished truth of the world in which he lives. His great strength and energy and his immense capacity for pursuing his passions in his waking hours are eclipsed by what he knows to be reality. However, in his clear-eyed visions, he still manages to excavate some hope. Instead of behaving like the politicians, who traffic in empty promises and outright lies, Dad looks at the world as it is and conceives a way to make it better.